Rage - An Analysis

Why are we so angry? Is it years of suppression. Years of curbing our natural instincts. This question popped into my mind today as I was watching two grown human beings beat the shit out of each other. Yeah I know scenes like this play out in movies every single night, but to see a real fight unravel in front of you is something else altogether. I stood there as a mere spectator watching with baited breath as the two men went at each other, out in the rain. The bigger of the two was bleeding from the head. Blood trickled down the side of his neck and stained his white shirt. The smaller man had scratches on his face. His shirt had been torn open revealing his rippling physique.  Surrounding the men were a horde of people but unlike me they were a lot more “hands on”.  A few of them slapped the bigger guy from time to time.  They had no sides in this fight. They could have just stood by and watched, but no, they wanted to be a part of the action. They wanted to vent out their anger.  Common folk like me and you. Men who struggle to make ends meet but can afford an occasional drink from time to time. The kind of men who can sniff a blood fest from a distance and flock to it like ravens over dead meat. Such is human nature, I thought to myself.  Maybe those natural instincts we tried to curb for all those years manifested themselves in hot boiling rage in such situations when bait is easy and there can be no repercussions.  

When I was a kid growing up in a noisy suburb of this shit hole called Mumbai, I used to hunt for trouble.  During zero period in our school, testosterone fueled pre-pubescent kids such as me would flock from classroom to classroom kicking unsuspecting students in the balls. I've been kicked there many times too.  It was like an initiation into manhood.  And then I got out of school and tried to channel my rage into more creative pursuits like writing and designing. Every fight I was dragged into, I searched for a peaceful resolution even though what I actually wanted to do was to beat the shit out of the other party.  But I curbed my natural instinct. Today as I stood out there, cigarette in hand watching two grown men beat the crap out of each other I felt like letting go. I felt like joining in the mauling and letting my personal rage flow through like the pouring rain, but I didn't because I realised that we are our own worst nightmare & every day we look into the mirror, it’s a fight with ourselves. 

The greatest battles are not fought in the battlefield, they are fought in our mind. They fester and grow within until one day our conscious being must face them & that’s the real fight. The fight one must save their energy for. In that battle, who comes out on top is of primary importance. Do you walk out of it, a better you or does it leave you with a hole so deep that reaching its end would consume your entire lifetime. Alas some questions have no immediate answers, do they?